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Design Philosophy
No Shuffle: a "combinatorial" deckbuilding game No-Shuffle is the first ever "combinatorial" deckbuilding game. Since it is a turn-based, perfect information deterministic game, it can be considered an "abstract board game", like chess or Go. However, it rewards a different set of skills than most abstract board games. One can imagine a spectrum of abstract games from "elegant" to "complex", with Hex lying on the "elegant" side of the spectrum, and Shogi lying on the "complex" end. However, a "combinatorial deckbuilding" game would lie far, far, to the right of the scale, far past Shogi. Shogi has eight different types of pieces; a deckbuilding game might have hundreds of different types of pieces--the cards in the card pool. In games like Hex, players spend very little time learning the rules of the game, and can jump right into the strategy. In games like Shogi, you might take half an hour to learn the rules, but it will still take days before you stop committing basic mistakes due to that unfamiliarity with the rules (e.g. getting forked by a drop). In a "combinatorial deckbuilding" game, the "rulebook" for the game may be quite short, but the complete "rules" of the game would in principle include every detail of every card in the card pool. And players would have to memorize most of those cards, and the most powerful combinations of cards, before they can start mastering the strategy. It is easy to see why such a game might not appeal to the usual abstract board game fan. Instead, it appeals to the player who *enjoys* the process of learning the rules of the game, and discovering the emergent consequences of those rules. Charles Zheng, the designer of the core rules of No Shuffle, did not start out trying to design an abstract game more complicated than Shogi. Zheng was trying to design a deck-building game similar to Magic: the Gathering or Hearthstone. However, he realized that eliminating hidden information and randomness in the game could elevate the depth of the game, and adds additional side benefits as well. It becomes easier to play the game: one can create the necessary game components out of common materials like post-it notes; it is easy to play the game via forums or e-mail; advanced players could even play the game without any physical components at all, keeping everything in memory. The core idea of the game is the "Zodiac rule": each card has an "input" sign and and "output" sign; there are five signs in the game. Players take turns playing one card per turn: they can choose any card in their deck, as long as the "input" sign of that card matches the "output" sign of their opponent's most recently played card. Cards have effects such as "add 2 points to your score": the first to 20 points wins the game. Because of the Zodiac rule, the gameplay has nontrivial depth even when the cards are so simplistic. However, the depth of gameplay pales in comparison to the true meat of the game: the drafting phase. Players *can* choose to play the game with pre-built decks; however, advanced players will want to draft their decks, taking turns to build their decks one card at a time, choosing cards reactively based on what their opponents chose. While the game has potential for great depth, it should still be accessible (and fun!) for casual players or beginners using pre-built decks. Such players need not memorize the entire card pool or think too hard about the Zodiac rule: instead, they should be encouraged to play the card that helps them the most in the short-term. After repeated play, they will naturally start to delve deeper into the strategy.